


FP Jones and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad House Party (or, "Nothing Good Ever Happens At One Of These")

by jugheadjones



Series: Senior Year [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Attempted Rape, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Blood and Violence, Denial of Feelings, Drunkenness, Fights, House Party, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Kissing, Multi, Paralyzing Fear Of Adulthood, Pining, Rape/Non-con Elements, Small Towns, Underage Drinking, Vomiting, at least they remembered to have a designated driver, beer pong, rich kids, this is not a happy story guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 02:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: Fresh from their latest football victory, with graduation rapidly approaching, the Riverdale High Bulldogs are throwing the biggest house party of the season. Attendance is mandatory for all players, and FP Jones assumes he'll have no trouble convincing his three best friends to join him.Sure, Hermione's busy dating a rich boy now, being around Fred is just a painful reminder that Fred's never going to love himlike thatagain, and things with Alice are all kinds of complicated. But they're still friends, and the jungle juice is free.Besides, he promised Fred they'd leave by one-thirty.





	FP Jones and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad House Party (or, "Nothing Good Ever Happens At One Of These")

**Author's Note:**

> This fic deals in a non-graphic way with attempted sexual assault and dubcon/noncon elements. Please take care of yourselves!

**PART ONE**

**pre-disaster**

“It’s just that nothing good ever happens at one of these things,” says Fred, and dips his last chicken tender in FP’s ketchup.

FP frowns, but gives up his cafeteria tray without complaint. His plate is clean anyway: Miss Beazley was unhappy with him about some crack he’d made about her refried beans, and had slapped him with an extra small helping. “We have fun, that’s what happens. What am I supposed to do when people ask where you are?”

“Tell ‘em the truth.” Fred takes a bite of his chicken and chews loudly. “Tell ‘em I’m at home getting my beauty sleep.”

FP wants to make a crack about how much of _that_ Fred needs, but can’t figure out a way to word it before his friend barrels ahead. “It’s senior year, FP. Don’t you think we’ve outgrown the whole ‘getting smashed at a football player’s house’ thing?”

FP’s ruffled. “You just spent the last twenty minutes making armpit noises, and you’re going to talk to me about maturity?”

Alice smirks at that, her head bent toward her chemistry readings. FP can usually count on Alice to back him up, but she has a test next period, and hasn’t chimed in once all lunch. FP doesn’t know why she bothers. Alice knows she’s going to ace it. FP figures the teachers don’t even open Alice’s tests anymore, just glance once at her name and slap an A on the cover.

“I’m just saying,” Fred is protesting. “We’re better than these clowns. We don’t need to get hammered and stumble around someone’s butt-smelling house until they get shut down by the cops to prove it.”

“He makes a compelling argument,” agrees Hermione, looking critically at her nails.

FP folds his arms. “Well, bully for you guys, but I’m kind of expected to make an appearance. So unless you want me to go alone like an idiot-”

“Right, you won us the game.” admits Fred, wiping his ketchupy hands on his shirt instead of a napkin. Rick Banks, the Bulldogs’ captain, was hosting the party as a post-game celebration of FP leading the team to untouchable victory last night.

FP leans forward. “Look, this could be the last house party we ever go to. All four of us, together. Let’s just go, have a good time, make it count. We don’t have to stay long. Then you can go home and do your mortgage or whatever riveting adult thing you think would take up your time better.”

Fred caves. “All right, but can we say we leave by one?”

“One-thirty,” bargains FP.

“Oh, what’s going to happen in those last thirty minutes?”

FP’s temper bubbles over. “Look, don’t even go then, if you hate it so much. I’ll go by myself.”

“Aw, FP, don’t-” Fred grabs his sleeve as FP swings his leg over the bench and stands up. “Don’t be mad, we’ll all be there.”

“And you’ll drink?”

“Yeah.”

“And have a good time?”

“Yeah.”

FP huffs a sigh and sits down at the table. “Well, I don’t want to bully you into it.”

“Who’s bullying? Rick said free jungle juice, right?”

“Yeah, and he’s got three kegs.”

“Then I’m there. You’re right. We can be adults when we’re dead.” Fred looks around the table. “Who’s in? Hermione?”

Hermione yawns in his face. “Might as well.”

“Alice?”

“I'll go, but I won’t drink.” She catches FP’s eye and looks coolly away. “You guys will need a designated driver anyway.”

If they’d been alone, FP might have said something else, something about wanting to know if Alice thought she was better than the rest of the Southside all of a sudden, something about what a stick in the mud she’d turned into since she’d started dating Hal Cooper. But it’s taken enough wheedling to get them this far, so he swallows his words. “All right. Thanks.”

“Fred’s right, though,” she adds pessimistically. “Nothing much good ever happens at these things. Ever.”

* * *

By eight-thirty that night, FP’s folded into the passenger seat of Alice’s volkswagen, breathing in the moldy scent of old cigarettes from the upholstery and the faux-cherry smell of Alice’s favourite body spray. They’re moving through neighbourhoods much quieter and cleaner than their own, winding their way closer to Fred’s with their headlights cutting yellow globes into the purple twilight.

“Acorn Way,” says FP when Alice almost passes the turn. 

“I know, FP.” 

“Well, you almost drove past it, so-”

“I’ve known Fred longer than you have, Forsythe.” 

He has his mouth open for a smart reply, but loses his train of thought when they turn the last corner and pull up to a small warzone. The front door of Fred’s house is flung open across the porch, light spilling out in a massive yellow patch that stains the porch and lawn in a rectangle. Across this sickly airstrip, two dark figures are facing each other, deep in throes of a screaming match. FP rolls his window down a crack.

 **_“ - Not in my house!”_ ** the larger of the two is yelling, pointing a finger at his son, his body thrust forward as if with the velocity of his rage.

Then the voice he recognizes as Fred’s - “I don’t give a damn about what you think!”

In the beam from their headlights and the yellow light, FP can just see the flash of Mr. Andrews’ eyes as he glances up at their car. The smaller figure - Fred - glances toward them once and then back at his father. Mr. Andrews’ parting roar is loud enough to stir the crickets up from the bushes, and set lights on in several nearby windows.

**_“You'd better not wake up your mother when you get back!”_ **

The door of the screen porch slams, and Fred runs pell-mell to the car, wrenches the backseat door open and jumps in. Somewhere else on the street, a dog is barking. Alice powers the gas as if it were a planned getaway, and the car leaps forward and out into the night. 

“Sorry,” says Fred breathlessly, as if they hadn't all heard the end of that. “How is everyone?”

“We’re good.”

“Okay.” says Fred, and then very quietly lays down in the backseat and presses his face into the cigarette-smelling upholstery.  

FP glances at Alice, who glances back at him, expression unreadable.

“Freddie,” tries FP carefully, “what were you two fighting about?”

“Me,” says Fred, but it comes out muffled into the leather of the seat.

“What about you?”

“Same shit as always.” Fred lifts his head up, rubbing at his eyes. “That I don't take anything seriously, that I don't have plans for next year, that I don't dress right or act right and I'm always palling around with you two instead of- I don't know, finding another job or something. You know what's the fucking breaks, FP?” Fred yanks the seatbelt out of the holder like he's trying to break it. He stretches it out as far as it will go and then buckles it roughly in. “He said he'd let me go out to this thing tonight over his dead fucking body and then I told him it was a football party and he said okay. You should have been his kid if he wants a big football star so bad.”

FP glances at Alice again, who mouths _he’s drunk._ FP doesn’t need it. He can smell the alcohol coming off Fred from the backseat. It’s unusual - showing up wasted is usually FP’s job. 

“I didn't even tell him I was cheerleading for you guys, remember when I did that?” Fred unbuckles his seatbelt and lets it snap back into the holder before pulling on it again. “Can you imagine his fucking face if I told him-”

“Fred, stop goofing with your seatbelt,” speaks up Alice. ‘Not in my car.”

“Sorry.” Fred goes more subdued at once. Then, almost cheerfully, as if nothing had ever happened: “So how are you guys?”

“Dunno, the same,” says FP when Alice is silent. “Freddie, did you start drinking without us?”

“I thought that was the plan.”

“Yeah, but I've only had one beer. You smell like you’ve had about a hundred.”

Actually, he knows what Fred smells like, and it’s harder than beer. FP’s dad drinks, and FP’s acquired the useless ability to pick out different types of liquor by scent. Some scents are better than others. Some scents mean you’d better go to your room and lock the door.

“Well, time to catch up,” says Fred with false cheer, and lolls his head back against the seat. Outside the window, rows of pale suburban homes stream past them like ghosts. “Rick’s house, huh? Have we been there before?”

“A couple times.” FP swipes at the base of his nose. That fake cherry smell is getting overpowering. It’s weird, because he knows Alice owns real perfume. Knows _Hal_ had given her some for Christmas. Why she’s gone back to her old middle school standby tonight, FP can’t begin to fathom.

“FP, reach in my jacket and get my gum for me,” says Alice, as if she’s reading his mind. FP obliges.

“Other pocket-” says Alice sharply, but not before FP’s fingers brush the familiar shape and texture of multiple dime bags of weed.

“Alice are you dealing tonight?”

Her eyes flash. “It's none of your business what I'm doing.”

Fred’s tipped over in the backseat with his head pressed against the window. FP thrusts his hand into the second, less roomy pocket of Alice’s coat and comes up with a blister pack of gum. 

“Thanks.” Alice waits for him to pop two of the squares out and then opens her mouth for them.

“Are your arms broken?”

Alice snaps her mouth shut and puts out a hand. “I was going to offer you some, but I take it back.”

FP obediently places the gum in her palm and crams the rest of the package back into her coat. He feels bad for the quip: it’s weird enough in the car tonight already without him starting fights. But if Alice is peeved, she doesn’t show it - just tosses the squares in her mouth and settles her hands back on the wheel. 

Rick’s house is easy to find: they only have to search for the biggest on the block. Cars are parked haphazardly up and down the wide street, and all the windows of Rick’s house have been flung open to let in air. Two guys in letterman jackets are having a loud argument on the lawn.

“This party’s a mess, and it hasn’t even started yet,” says Alice disapprovingly, watching the bickering football players as they glide past in their search for a parking space. FP decides to ignore her.

“Hermione and Mary are coming together, right?” He keeps an eye on the rearview mirror, expecting Fred to perk up at the sound of Mary’s name, but Fred doesn’t budge.

“Last I heard.” Alice, parked, has pulled the sun-visor down and is giving her makeup a once-over in the cramped mirror. “They were going to go early.”

“Fred, grab my booze from back there,” says FP, because Fred still hasn’t moved.

“Got it, FP.”

Alice snaps the sun-visor back up. “All right. Let’s do this.”

* * *

The house is massive - the immense oak doors open into a towering front hall with a gleaming, frosted waterfall of a chandelier suspended above the tile. It’s not quite Vic Mantle’s mansion, but as far as upper middle-class houses go, it’s larger than most. Certainly more ornate than anything FP’s ever been able to dream of.

They find Rick in the kitchen when they file in, leaning against a gleaming marble topped island next to Jerry Mason, another football player, and Jerry’s girlfriend Marilyn. Two massive storage containers full of colourful liquid are on the floor, and the kitchen counters are dotted with large and hilariously empty juice and liquor bottles. Fred leans forward to peer into one of the vats, and FP grabs the back of his shirt on instinct in case he slips and faceplants into it. Fred’s not falling over himself, but his walk has been listing just enough to one side to make FP nervous.

“Orange or purple, Jerry?” asks Fred, admiring the two massive makeshift punch bowls. Quiet music is thumping through the house, the bass loud enough that some of the items on the shelves seem to shiver.

Jerry grins, and offers FP a bone-crushing hug in greeting. “I’ve only tried the orange.”

“I’ll go purple, then.”

“No one tries any of this yet.” Rick spreads his arms over the vats of jungle juice. “I don’t want it gone before anyone shows up. The party doesn’t start until the chicks to dudes ratio officially equals one to one.”

“Like you care about that,” needles Jerry tacitly, and Rick grabs him in a headlock. Jerry might be the only man alive who can riff Rick about his sexuality and emerge mostly unscathed. It’s because he doesn’t mean any harm by it. Jerry’s all heart. Rick shoves him into the counter as punishment and then lets him go. 

“Hal’s coming any minute,” Rick says now, as Jerry massages the place where the countertop had struck his abdomen.

“Oh, goodie,” says Alice flatly, and pats her hair into place. Jerry glances at FP with a question in his eyes, but FP looks away from him.

“How many kegs have you got?” he asks, more for everyone else’s benefit than his own, delivering his question to the sliding glass doors at the back of the kitchen. 

“Three,” answers Rick importantly. God forbid one of Rick’s parties only have two. If FP asked about the toilet paper thickness, he’d probably get the same answer. “One in the living room, one out back, and one in the rec room. And we’ve got a new stereo system, if you want to see it.” 

“Where’s my future wife?” speaks up Fred.

“Mary’s upstairs,” obliges Marilyn with a smile. She’s dressed in her cheerleading uniform, and FP can feel Alice looking disapprovingly at it. “Hermione too.”

“Then that’s where I’ll be.” Fred plunks FP’s beers down with a rattle. “Call me if we take shots.”

“Have you called Mary that to her face, yet?” asks Alice.

“Not yet.”

“Well, make sure I’m around when you do. I haven’t seen you get punched in awhile.”

“Your wish is my command,” says Fred, sticking his tongue out at her. He beats it out of the room. “See you guys.”

Rick hardly looks around - Fred’s comings and goings are no more important to him than those of a flea- but Jerry watches Fred go with a bemused smile. Jerry and Fred know each other almost exclusively through FP, but Jerry’s always been sweet on Fred, fond in this protective older brother kind of way. Their energies mesh, Gladys would have said.

 _Jerry, keep an eye out for Fred tonight_ , he means to say. But the doorbell rings, and Jerry heads off down the hall to get it, and Rick wants to show Alice and FP the new stereo, and Marilyn’s already pouring herself a shot, and he forgets. The pre-party excitement is in the air, a kind of nervous, drunken energy, and FP feels a smooth, warm satisfaction at being a senior here, at being one of the elite few to whom this party belonged.

The group of people that stream in are mostly other seniors, and FP finds himself suddenly lost in a mob of hands that want to make contact with his body: football players pounding his back, boys’ arms slung around his shoulders, girls squeezing him in hugs or else only laying hands on him with reverence. FP knows next to nothing about organized religion, but he thinks Jesus must have felt like this: like a small town football hero that had just won their high school the big game. Just a bit.

He sees a single, dark flash of Alice’s eyes in his direction before she heads out onto the back porch, but FP resolves to put her comprehensively out of sight and out of mind for the time being. _None of your business what I do tonight_ , she had signaled to him in the car, and FP was willing to take that to heart. He wasn’t going to waste his time guessing what had her in such a peevish mood. Or why Hal, who had just come in with two-sixths of the cheerleading squad, had the same dour look on his face. Like this was the last party before the end of the world.

* * *

“We have to stop meeting like this,” jokes Hermione, and takes a swig from her bottle of wine.

Mary sighs. “I don't even know why I'm here.” Reclining on the toilet tank, she lifts her bottle of schnapps to her lips, leaving a pink imprint on the neck where her lips touch the plastic. “I have homework I could be doing. _Should_ be doing.” Her feet drum nervously on the lid of the toilet. “And that essay’s due on Monday.”

Hermione shakes out her long dark hair, examining the effect in the mirror. “Mary, you could rip that essay of yours up into itty-bitty little pieces, and you’d still finish the year with a perfect A. There’s nothing to stress about anymore. Colleges only look at your fall term grades.”

“I haven’t been accepted anywhere, yet,” Mary reminds her, watching Hermione carefully fix her cleavage in the mirror. Hermione pooh-poohs her with a wave of one manicured hand.

“And you’re really worried about it? Get real, Mer. The only thing you need to worry about tonight is Freddie Andrews putting out. And Penelope showing up, but I’ll take care of that hag if I see her.”

“I don’t want to sleep with Fred tonight.”

“Then when, Mary? It’s been two whole months.” Hermione reapplies her lipgloss and blows herself a kiss. “Fred’s not bad, you know. Oh, but he’s slow. _S-L-O-W_. If you just let him have at you, you’ll be waiting forty-five minutes for him to get to third base. So you have to kind of speed him along.”

Mary puts her hands over her ears, careful not to slop schnapps into her hair. “Minnie, I don’t want you to tell me how he is.”

Hermione sighs, but doesn’t comment. “Can I pee?”

“Yeah, sure.” Mary climbs off the toilet tank and heads to the mirror, scooping her hair experimentally up off her neck with her free hand. “Do you think I should I put my hair up?" 

“It’s better down.” Hermione lifts the seat and sits as Mary takes another swig from the bottle and wipes some mascara off her cheek. “Hey, you know what my sister always told me was the best way to drink peach schnapps?” 

“How?”

“Through a kiss. One mouth to the other.”

“That’s so, so unsanitary.”

Hermione huffs in response, and climbs off the toilet in Mary’s periphery with a rustle of dress. The toilet flushes loudly, and Hermione joins her at the sink, snatching the nearly-empty wine bottle up off the floor as she goes. “When’s Fred getting lucky, then?”

“Not at a football house party, that’s all.”

“Well, to each their own.” Hermione drains the bottle and drops it neatly into the white wicker trash can, reaching around Mary to wash her hands so that she inadvertently presses her breasts up against Mary’s back. Mary goes very, very still. 

“You okay, Mer?” Hermione reaches up for a towel, leaning harder against her. “Am I all up in your space? I get touchy when I’m drunk, you know that.”

Mary does know that. That’s not why her pulse is racing. She turns around, expecting Hermione’s grasp to break, but Hermione stays as close to her as ever, so that Mary has to tilt her head a bit to look up into her eyes. Trying to draw attention away from the flush she knows is colouring her face, she holds up the bottle of schnapps. “Do you want this? I’m done.”

“Oh, you’ve barely had any.” Hermione releases her and steps back from the sink, accepting the bottle and unscrewing the top. She smells very clean and very sweet. “Try it my way, seriously.”

“You mean-" 

Hermione props Mary’s chin up with her still-damp fingers. “Do you trust me, Mary?”

“Yes.” And God help her, she _does_ \- even if common sense says she shouldn’t.

Hermione lifts the little bottle, filling her mouth with the drink without swallowing. Her fingers search gently through Mary’s hair before cupping the back of her head, Mary smells that cleanness again as her face comes ever closer, the shampoo and soap of her, a sharp something floral from the inside of her wrist, the faint fruity smell of the lip gloss.

She hardly has time to register their lips meeting before Hermione teases her mouth open and her senses are flooded with peach - cold peach liquid and the warm, wet press of Hermione’s tongue over hers. Mary tries to kiss back, but there’s too much schnapps in her mouth, and Hermione won’t let her. Hermione spills the drink fully into Mary’s mouth, tugs softly once at her top lip, and then releases her.

Mary’s too surprised to even swallow, one hand hurrying to her chin to catch a dribble of peach that had run free from her lips. Her mouth feels sticky from Hermione’s lip gloss. Hermione steps back from the sink with a glow in her eyes, her lips shiny and wet. “How’d that taste?”

“Mary!” calls Fred abruptly from outside, and knocks on the door. Mary chokes and spits schnapps everywhere.

Hermione cracks a grin, but refrains from laughing at her. “She’ll be out in a second, Fred,” she calls through the door, offering Mary the towel she’d dried her hands with. Turning back to the mirror, she takes her lipgloss once more out of her purse, and starts carefully reapplying it, raising her voice to be heard through the wood. “Don’t worry about it.”

* * *

FP’s polishing off the third beer from his six pack when Jerry sticks his head into the rec room.

“Get Fred and everyone, we’re taking shots. Seniors only.”

FP heads obediently up the stairs and finds Fred on his way down, Hermione and Mary flanking him on either side. _What a guy_ , FP’ll remember thinking. _Ex-girlfriend on the left, current girlfriend on the right. Abso-fucking-lutely unbelieveable._

“Shots,” he relays simply, and Fred speeds up his pace, Mary glued to his side like they’re joined at the hip. Hermione pinches FP on the ass before she passes him, probably because Hiram hasn’t shown up yet, and she’s bored, but FP appreciates it all the same.

Rick’s lining shot glasses up on the kitchen counter when they get there, clearing stacks of unwrapped solo cups to make room. Along with Rick, Jerry, Alice, and Marilyn, they’re joined by Vic Mantle, Harry Clayton, and three other Bulldogs. Sierra, their student body president, is perched on the edge of the island, expensive boots dangling. Manford Muggs, vice-president, is looking uncertainly at the purple vat of jungle juice to his right. 

“Four more,” calls Jerry when they walk in. “Hang on, five.”

FP turns, sees Hal Cooper out of the corner of his eye, and turns back again. Hal, however, doesn’t get the hint, moving right up behind FP and slapping him hard on the back.

“Hey, FP. How’s it been?”

 _How’s it been_ is a Hal-ism: he’ll never ask how you are or what’s going on, just _how’s it been_ , and without really expecting an answer. “Fine,” says FP guardedly now, but Hal’s already moved on, heading over to Rick and Vic with a grin that’s a lot more genuine. _The three stooges_ , Fred calls them sometimes, more for FP’s benefit than his own. Fred’s never had anything against Hal, but then, FP’s never had anything really against Hiram, either. Best friends inherit each other’s enemies. It’s part of the deal. 

Rick’s slopped a good amount of tequila into every shot glass, and Harry’s passing them around with a plate of limes. FP takes one for the ceremony. Vic’s hunted down a box of salt, and Jerry and Marilyn are licking each other’s thumbs to make it stick.

“It’s good luck,” says Marilyn with a smile when she catches FP watching. FP doesn’t ask anyone to lick him. He’ll take the bad luck, thanks. (Four hours from now, he might have reconsidered.)

“Everyone got one?” asks Rick loudly. “I’m not asking again. Alright, cheers. To-”

He hesitates as everyone’s shot glasses come together, no doubt running through options in his head. To _senior year_ , to _graduation_ , to _football_ , to _RHS_ , to _getting fucked up_ -

“To FP!” finishes one of FP’s teammates, and Rick nods in approval.

“To FP,” he concludes.

“FP!” yells everyone, and FP feels holy all over again. He’s busy watching Fred’s mouth move with his name, and forgets to check if Hal Cooper had joined in on the toast. Maybe he had. Hal has this annoying way of acting like he doesn’t hate every inch of FP, right down to his Southside guts. Golden boys don’t hold grudges. They sit there and shut up and let people take pictures.

The alcohol burns nicely going down, and he chases it with a swig of beer number four, forgetting about the lime. Sierra, no doubt employing the kind of forward-thinking that had won her the presidency, scoops two cups of orange jungle juice and leaves the kitchen with them before the pandemonium starts. FP decides to follow her, figuring the keg in the rec room will be less coveted. Rick’s shouting instructions at the rest of them - _one keg here, one keg there, jungle juice, help yourselves, cups here, go this way, bedrooms upstairs, careful by the pool_ \- but it’s his senior year, and FP doesn’t need anyone to tell him how a house party works.

The thing is, FP’s forgotten rule number one. That you don’t leave Fred alone with a vat of jungle juice if you know what’s good for either of you. But by the time the keg starts flowing, FP’s forgotten to be worried about that, or anything. Vic, who’s Rick’s best friend and thus the only person permitted to touch the brand new stereo, has cranked the music as high as it will go and the sound is clear and true and outstanding. In the pounding of the bass through his ribs and the pounding of his heart in his temples, thinking is an impossibility.

By ten pm he’s finished his six pack, abandoned his letterman somewhere unknown, lost track of how many beers he’s downed from the foamy keg, and has no longer the presence of mind to look back.

* * *

**PART TWO**

**fear/shock/relief**

The dance floor is good. The kitchen is bad. FP leaves the dance floor for the kitchen once, and finds himself somehow locked into endless losing rounds of beer pong with Hal Cooper, getting more and more heated every time Hal beats him. It doesn’t help that it’s all his football teammates crowded in there with him, cheering loudly at his frustration. Rationally, FP knows that they’re ribbing him in jest, that they still respect him even as his shot goes wide once, twice, three times in a row, but the rational part of his mind is slowly being eaten away by Hal’s voice every time he crows in victory, and it makes FP’s arm shake so that he misses by an even wider margin.

The floor is sticky from spilled drinks, and it sucks greedily at the crappy soles of his shoes every time he shifts position. People keep shoving through the kitchen to get at the jungle juice (the orange is disappearing quicker than the purple), and someone bumps FP’s back or elbow every time he’s getting ready to take a shot. The music is somewhat quieter in here, quiet enough that FP’s brain can at least think in occasional full sentences again instead of purely feelings and colours, and one comes to him now as he sees Jerry yelling and pounding Hal on the back - _Jerry, you two-faced, nasty, traitor._  

And Alice is there, because _of course she is_ , sober, because _of course she is_ , looking at him with her cool, cool eyes and still smelling faintly of bottled cherry smell, watching him lose, and lose his cool, and get drunker and sweatier and spill more and more drink on himself, and he doesn’t even have the comfort of assuring himself she won’t remember it in the morning. No, this might well be their last house party, and Alice will probably remember him forever like this: damp and angry and losing at beer pong, ten-dollar shoes stuck to the mess of the kitchen floor that must have cost Rick’s parents more than he’ll ever see in his entire life. 

Finally, he excuses himself because he can’t take it anymore, and Marilyn and Alice take his place against Harry and Manford. The bulldogs crowded around Hal leap up and down and do their barking, howling thing, swatting Hal on the back like he’s a national hero. As if FP had never existed, or won them the big game, or anything. 

 _Forget it_ , he tells himself as he goes, the last coherent full sentence that will cross his brain for a while. _They crucified Jesus too._

* * *

It’s past eleven when Hiram shows up, stoic behind the wheel of a gleaming black Porsche that draws most of the freshmen in gaggles out onto the lawn to admire it. FP’s in the hallway, chatting with a dark-haired, ponytailed girl that kind of looks like Gladys if you squint. From over her shoulder, he has a clear view out the open front door. The black car pulls up like water, and seems to bring an eerie kind of serenity onto the grounds with it, as if they’d all been waiting here for this arrival. The temperature in the front hall - a muggy, sweltering heat, even with the door open - seems to cool and regulate, like Hiram had blown in on a breath of cool air. 

The girl - FP’s forgotten her name, thinks it might be Kersty or Kristen but wouldn’t bet even a bag of chips on it - turns around to see where he’s looking. She’s not the only one: Hiram walks into the party like he owns the place, and everyone stares. In the sea of corny letterman jackets and hopefully-short tank tops, Hiram’s sleek black outfit screams expense. 

“Hiram! The man!” Rick comes barrelling out of the living room. Hiram’s clearly already drunk, his eyes gleaming in a way no one’s eyes ever look sober. He lets Rick hug him, but doesn’t return it. Hiram’s too rich to hug people.

“C’mere,” says Rick loudly, with football-captain authority. “FP and I are headed to the rec room.”

Hiram turns his eyes on FP, gives him a cool once-over, and then, recognizing him as their football hero, a toothy, crooked smile. FP feels Hiram’s approval land on him - not in a warm glow, but a cool, all-over settling from his head to his feet. He can’t help it, it feels good, even if he knows it’s only because Hiram hasn’t drawn a connection between him and Fred’s band yet. Maybe it’s the money, but Hiram is one of those people you want to approve of you.

And FP really doesn’t hate Hiram - he’s supposed to, because Fred does, but then again, as he’d reminded himself in the kitchen - Fred doesn’t really hate Hal. FP can hang out with Hiram if he wants to.

“Hermione here?” asks Hiram, glittery eyes focusing on Rick again, and FP realizes that, in fact, the right thing to do as Fred’s best friend is indeed to hang out with Hiram for the foreseeable future, in order to keep Hiram and Hermione separated. His drunken mind forgets that Fred and Hermione are no longer a _thing_ \- the impulse for so long has been to buy Fred and Hermione time together at Hiram’s expense that it comes as naturally to him as breathing.

“Not sure,” he says cryptically, before Rick can speak. “Come have a beer before it’s gone.”

* * *

The gaps in his memories start about now, because for the life of him he doesn’t know what they talk about in the rec room, or which of the rec room’s many amenities they take advantage of once Rick points out all his expensive toys and games and informs them loftily that he only uses them for _entertaining_ , because he spends all his free time training _athletically_ , thank you very much, and that’s why he has the captainship. He thinks they might have actually played shuffleboard - him and Hiram _fucking_ Lodge - but doesn’t trust himself enough to confirm or deny it. They must go back to the dance floor at some point, because that’s where he’s standing when one of the drunken freshmen leaps off the upper landing behind the stairs and hits the carpet with a thump that resonates through the whole house. In an alcohol-induced miracle, she gets up with full use of both her legs and heads back into the dance floor.

Hiram leaves them eventually, off to find Hermione, but by that point FP’s forgotten he’s supposed to be trying to keep him and Hermione separate. The house is absolutely sweltering, and he has to take off his shirt to keep from passing out. The temperature in the rec room is so hot that when one of the other Bulldogs tries a keg stand, he’s just swallowing foam. Rick disappears for a long time, and no one can find him for the life of them to tell him his keg is a bust. 

At some point in the hour between midnight and one, he runs into Mary in the front hall, putting her coat on and helping the little dark-haired girl (KRISTA?) into her own.

“I'm leaving,” she says. “Will you tell Fred goodbye for me?”

FP promises he will without really registering the words, certainly not enough to remind him that he hasn’t seen Fred in hours. The next thing he knows he's back in the kitchen (that **_fucking_** , sticky-floored kitchen) yelling at Hal about something - something about an easy interception, how they could have started with a lead if Hal had only run a certain play right - and then there's cool night air on his face and he's being marched out by the pool by two of his teammates, trying to separate the two of them. There's broken glass on the floor, and he’ll realize much later that Hal had thrown something at his head.

There's a bunch of guys and girls in the hot tub, the rim dotted with sticky, precariously placed beer bottles, and he thinks for a moment that Fred must be among them - Fred could never resist a hot tub - but FP circles it twice, and he’s not there. One of the girls is completely topless, her long red hair floating on the surface of the tub, her naked breasts milk-white in the lights from the pool. Rick and Vic are in one corner, also without shirts, Vic sitting on Rick’s lap, kissing as unselfconsciously as if they were alone. FP turns away quickly, but they don’t notice him. No one notices him at all.

He stares into the pool for a little while, and thinks of Alice saying ‘this party’s a mess and it hasn’t even started .’ FP stares at his rippling reflection, feels himself tipping a bit forward, and has to reach out for a nearby wall to steady himself before he somersaults into the water. There’s a sludge of beer cans floating on the gloomy surface, and what definitely looks like broken glass at the bottom. Maybe why no one’s swimming. Rick’s backyard is fenced in by a wall taller than his head, and they have complete privacy. The music from the stereo is muffled out here, and it’s something like living inside a globe.

He goes to the hot tub, sheds his jeans, and gets in in his underwear. He doesn’t give a fuck if Rick and Vic catch him catching them at this point. They’ve caught him with Fred enough times. The topless girl is looking at him, but FP doesn’t catch her eye. He thinks about Fred on his lap in a hot tub, Fred naked and wet and soft, Fred’s skin slippery-damp under his hands, Fred’s jaw grazing his, Fred’s legs on either side of -

Fred. Fuck. FP hasn’t seen him all night.

FP squeezes his eyes tight shut, pressing his wet hands against them, trying with all his might to gather what little remains of his focus. Fred. When was the last time he had seen Fred? _In the kitchen_ , his mind tells him unhelpfully. _A long time ago. You grabbed his shirt in case he fell in the jungle juice._

Because Fred was drunk, already. Fred can take care of himself, true, but Fred’s also a lightweight, and it takes about three shots to knock him over. And if he’d been drunk when they got there-

FP's gaze moves off across the hot tub, and he loses his train of thought. Rick’s touching Vic’s back in this special way that makes FP’s insides curl up, like Vic Mantle is the most precious thing in the world to him, like he’s everything. The water laps against Vic’s bare back, against their joined skin, and FP feels his chest hurt in this bad way, like nothing he’s ever felt before.

“I’m Penelope,” says the redhead.

“I have to go,” says FP.

He has to throw up, is what he has to do, because there’s too much drink spinning around in him to focus, and somewhere out there in the night Fred might possibly need him, maybe right at this moment. FP goes down the deck stairs, finds some bushes near the back of the yard, and pukes. Twice, for good measure. Marilyn and Jerry are on their way back from the gazebo, (like Noah’s fucking ark, around here, FP remembers thinking, two by fucking two-) and Jerry pauses when he sees him.

“FP? You okay?" 

“Fine,” says FP, in a voice that sounds stronger than he feels. “Just had too much.”

“Well, better out than in,” says Jerry, which is a Fred-ism, and goes back up toward the house with Marilyn on his arm without a care in the goddamn world. FP watches him go and hates him: in a different way than he’d hated Vic and Rick, who were still consummating in the fucking tub, in a different way than he’d hated Jerry when he’d cheered for Hal during beer pong, but hates him all the same - hates him because he knows Jerry has a scholarship to the State University lined up and because he and Marilyn will probably get married and be happy together for the rest of their lives, and one day Jerry will forget FP had ever existed. Will forget that he’d ever been close enough with someone named FP Jones to stop on his way back from the gazebo to ask if he was okay. Will forget why he says “ _better out than in”_ when his kids are sick (because _Jerry_ ’s having kids, and _Fred_ wants kids, and  _Mary_ wants kids, and FP can’t _give_ Fred kids, can’t _ever_ have kids because he’ll mess them up just like his old man did to him) will forget that he learned that from FP’s best friend Fred Andrews, that he didn’t come up with it on his own-

_Stop._

FP doesn’t know when he got back in the hot tub, or why, but he’s there now. It’s emptier: Rick and Vic are there, still kissing, and another couple, but everyone else has cleared out. FP lays his head against the damp edge of the tub and stares up at the sky.

The stars seem colder and farther away than ever, impersonal in their whiteness. He tries to pick out constellations the way he would with Fred, both of them wrapped in blankets in the bed of a pickup truck, but the stars he sees are an unfocused mass. He can still hear the dull pounding of music, someone else’s faint retching from the bushes out back. A boy and a girl are having an argument on the porch, the boy silhouetted in the yellow of the open plate glass door. He strains to see if he can recognize the voices, wondering if it's Alice and Hal, believing hopefully for a moment that it's Fred and Mary and he doesn’t have to worry, but eventually he can tell it's neither of them: a perky blonde freshman and a plain looking, square-jawed sophomore. 

Maybe Fred was right, they were too old for this- maybe all of this belonged to a world that wasn't his anymore, one that was slowly edging him out. The rim of the hot tub is cutting into the back of his neck, but he doesn’t bother to move. FP envies Gladys- she has two years left at this place, two years left of high school and knowing what was what. Two years left before she felt this great, dark, blossoming terror of the unknown and had to pretend she liked to think about it.

Instead of sobering him up, the warm water’s just making him nauseous again. FP thinks it's a wonder no one's drowned out here yet. Or puked in the pool.

“Vicky,” sighs Rick from the corner.

“Fred,” whispers FP to no one.

The stars twinkle down at him, as cold and as remote as glaciers.

* * *

**PART THREE:  **

**crisis**

Fred’s really drunk, a lot drunker than he’s used to being, even at the last dozen football parties he’s been to. He’s stumbling his way through the front hall, gently pushing through crowds, searching for anyone he knows among the faces, trying to figure out a way to keep himself from upchucking right here and now.

The downstairs bathroom looms suddenly to his right, and he seizes the doorknob like he’s drowning. Fred muscles his way inside, slams and locks the door, and, in a startling display of self-sufficiency, sheds his collared shirt in one easy move, scoops his own hair up off his forehead and vomits cleanly into the toilet bowl. It tastes like hot beer coming up, which makes him want to vomit again, but he manages to get control of his gag reflex and only crouches over the toilet bowl, trembling.

“You're okay,” he says reassuringly to himself, pressing the flush and giving himself a once-over to make sure he hadn't been sick on his outfit. He does feel better now, and he's pretty impressed at himself for making it in here and being able to hold his own hair up. He puts his shirt back on, rinses his mouth out at the tap, and makes a mental note to get himself a glass of water from the kitchen (no more beer tonight, thank _you_ ).

O _h, yeah, baby,_ he thinks, scrubbing his hands and chin clean at the sink, _Freddie Andrews can take care of himself. Parenthood, here I come._

It's his last optimistic thought of the evening, paired with _I’ll probably sober up a bit now._ He'd gotten some of the alcohol out of his system, he might actually be able to walk out of here instead of crawling. Maybe FP would be ready to go by now, or maybe at least Alice would.

His hands shake a bit when he’s unlocking the door, but he doesn’t pay attention to them. At least his stomach no longer feels like it’s caught in a vortex. “Alice-?” he calls hopefully, starting down the hall in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen.

Rather than getting better, everything seems to be spinning more now. His arms are shaking, and the second time he stumbles going down the hallway, his head connects with the corner of the stair railing hard enough to leave a bruise. In the moment he feels only a brief sting, like an insect bite. He touches the tender lump on his forehead and feels reassured when his fingers come away clean.

Sleep. That's what he needs. About fifteen minutes of a nap to get his head on straight again, and then he can come back down and play beer pong or something. Only no more beer. God, no more beer. And if he throws up again, he throws up again, but maybe if he can just lie down for awhile it’ll stop everything spinning like that.

He gets himself up the big staircase by clutching tight to the rail, and by a miracle the first bedroom he finds is empty. It's the one people have been tossing their coats in, and he collapses onto the bed right on top of somebody's Varsity letterman. Fred closes his eyes and counts to ten. Then fifteen. Then twenty. When he can feel all his extremities again, he opens his eyes and looks up at the ceiling. It's not spinning anymore, at least.

Fred closes his eyes and feels better. A quick catnap here, then he can go back down and join the party. Why had he ever thought he’d get Alice to take them home? He was totally fine. There was more party left in him. He hadn’t even been out back to the hot tub yet. 

He’s not sure if he sleeps or for how long, but he's jolted into awareness when the bedroom door bangs open, the swimming lines of his vision clearing and coming into focus. Fred lifts his head a few inches from a pink windbreaker to see who's interrupted him.

“I thought I saw you come up here.” says a smooth, cold voice.

Awesome. The very last person he wants to see. “Go away, Hiram,” groans Fred, and lets his head fall back against the pillow.

Squinting down the bridge of his nose at the door, he notices that Hiram doesn’t leave. Instead he does the scariest thing Fred’s ever seen him do.

He smiles.

Then he pulls the door closed behind him.

* * *

“Have you seen Fred?”

“Fred Andrews?” asks Kenny Doiley. He’s leaning back against the staircase, battered solo cup in hand, glasses perched on the edge of his nose.

FP snaps. “What other Fred would I be looking for?”

Kenny looks around at his friends, who look back at him with similarly blank expressions, and then shrugs. “Not for awhile. He’s probably off somewhere getting laid, don't worry about it.” 

“Thanks,” grumbles FP, and turns away from them. “For nothing,” he adds under his breath as he heads back toward the front door. In his heart, he knows it’s useless. FP’s combed every single inch of the bottom floor over and over again. Fred is nowhere to be found.

 _He left me_ , FP thinks incredulously, turning in a circle on the floor. _He left and went home to get his fucking beauty sleep._

Only Fred doesn't do that. Fred wouldn't. Fred was drunk when they got there, he remembers. Fred raided his old man’s liquor cabinet and then they had a fight.

A bad fight, too. An ‘ _I don’t give a damn what you think’_ kind of fight. Fred never talks to his old man like that, never _ever_ , and Mr Andrews is hardly ever that angry with him. Fred’s his old man’s pride and joy. FP’s father could shoot him with a shotgun tomorrow, and FP wouldn’t feel the slightest little tickle of surprise. But Fred? Fred was probably reeling.

“Fred Andrews?” he asks a group of girls hopefully in the living room, yelling over the music. He gets a lot of blank faces, but Harry’s curly-haired girlfriend, Alice, (no relation to current thorn in FP’s bleeding side) speaks up.

“Fred’s really fucking drunk,” she tells him. “I dunno where he is, though.”

“When did you see him last?”

Alice squints, unsure. “The kitchen, I think? Or the front porch.”

Two opposite ends of the house. “Thanks,” FP says anyways, and turns away.

“Have you seen Fred?” he asks Myles McCoy, only the slightest bit of desperation bleeding into his tone. Myles snorts, as if the very thought that he could keep track of Fred Andrews’ whereabouts was demeaning. But he’s standing in a group of people, most of them basketball players, and they all know who Fred is. 

“Yeah,” someone tells him finally. “I think he went upstairs.”

Upstairs. FP hadn’t even thought to search upstairs. _There you have it_ , he tells himself, _he's up the bedrooms with Mary._

Only Mary had gone home. Hadn’t she?

FP rotates in a circle, looking around at the mass of people, his mind spinning, spinning, spinning like a busted record. Trying to pull a memory out of the faded mass of this night. Himself, standing in the front hall. And Mary had been there, and she had said -

“Tell Fred goodbye for me,” he whispers, and feels goosebumps rise on his arms, despite the heat.

She had said -

_I’m leaving. Tell Fred goodbye for me._

So Fred was not in the upstairs bedrooms with Mary. And Fred was a good guy, and wasn’t in the upstairs bedrooms with anyone else, either, FP would have bet his life on that. Which left: Fred was missing. MIA. Unaccounted for. Down for the count.

He wishes knowing that didn't make his blood feel cold. 

* * *

“You know, I've been trying to figure it out and can't,” says Hiram, moving across the room toward the bed and shedding his jacket as he goes. “Why all the girls go crazy for you. What the hell Hermione sees in you.”

 _Don’t hit me,_  Fred thinks briefly, stupidly, sure Hiram advancing on him like that meant he was going to get beat to a pulp for reasons unclear to him. His vision is still tripling, and everything has taken on the glittery, oversaturated look of a dream he won't remember tomorrow. Apparently he was drunker than he thought he was, drunker than one technicolour yawn could fix. But the thing Hiram says next is scarier than any blow that could have landed on him.

“Why don't you show me what all the fuss is about?”

“No,” says Fred, frightened, but more annoyed than he is scared. Really wishing only that Hiram would turn around and go away and leave him to rest for a bit, and maybe walk out of his life at the same time and keep walking. But he’d settle for Hiram just leaving the goddamn room.

“Come on,” Hiram’s voice is sugar-sweet, his added body-weight dipping the mattress before Fred even knows what's happening. Hiram’s black eyes are glittering with inebriation. Hiram’s drunk. Really drunk. Fred can smell it on his breath, but it’s those eyes most of all. “Show me what’s so fucking irresistible about you.”

“No-” Fred grunts weakly, still half-convinced it’s a joke, tossing an arm over his face and then, louder, more insistent, when he feels Hiram’s fingers on his waistband: “No, Hiram.”

Hiram tries to wrench his arm off his face and Fred snaps it back so that his knuckles smash against the wooden headboard, drawing blood. “No!” 

“Don't say no to me, you little _bitch_.”

The nice Hiram is gone. His hands have fastened around Fred’s neck, pressing him into the pillow, not squeezing yet, but his two thumbs are heavy where they sit on Fred’s throat. Fred’s too disoriented to react, jerking his head to the side in a movement that's meant to free him but is executed as docilely as a yawn. “No,” he moans as the world tips dizzily around him, knowing it's useless, more in repetition of the hopeless phrase than anything. His throat is drying up and he knows he won’t have much a voice much longer. “Please-”

* * *

FP, out in the hall, perks up at the sound of Fred’s voice. He rotates slowly in a circle under the massive skylight, searching the myriad of bedroom doors for the right one. He doesn’t want to walk in on anyone having sex, but he’s confident he hadn’t been mistaken. He knows what Fred’s shout sounds like after four years of friendship. The trick was to find the right door. 

He chooses the nearest at random and presses his ear to the wood.

“No-” Fred is saying, his voice bleary and confused even through the oak paneling, and more sharply again, petulant- “ _No_ . _Stop_.” 

FP doesn’t hesitate. He’s mostly sober after his vomiting spell, and the cold fright undercutting those syllables halts the rest of his drunkenness as effectively as if he’d been thrown in cold water. He grabs the door and flings it open.

Fred is flat on his back on the bed, Hiram Lodge kneeling on top of him, pinning his upper arms down. They're both fully clothed, but there's no mistaking the stance. The look in Hiram’s black eyes is that of a wild animal with it’s prey. Fred has one pale hand thrown up over his face like he doesn't want to see what's happening.

FP crosses the room faster than he’s ever crossed a room in his life. He grabs Hiram and yanks him off the bed, blood rushing so hot and loud in his head that he can’t make sense of his own thoughts, can’t hear anything but the blood in his ears and the occasional ragged breath bursting out of his lungs. If Hiram says anything, if Fred calls out to him in surprise, the sound doesn’t land. He hauls Hiram out of the room before he knows what he’s doing, hauls him bodily down the staircase on adrenaline alone and drags him forcefully out the front door and onto the porch. Hiram twists his head, trying to get away, (at some point one of FP’s hands had fastened hard in Hiram’s hair) and FP punches him full in the face, lets go of his hair, and watches Hiram’s foot slip off the top step so that he falls the three steps down from the porch to the lawn.

“Look, you don't understand-” protests Hiram when he climbs back to his feet, fear bleeding into his voice, and FP thinks for a moment that he's never looked smaller, standing there on the lawn in his black t-shirt and expensive hairdo. FP’s next punch lands right on his mouth: he feels Hiram’s teeth on his knuckles and knows he's at least loosened some of them. Hiram stumbles back, spitting blood. “Mother _fucker_ -”

FP hits him again, hard in the side of the head, and then Hiram doesn’t say anything else. Stumbling to stay upright, Hiram reaches back with his left hand - the one that sported the huge, glittering class ring. It’s his signature move, one that had left Fred without a significant chunk of the flesh on the side of his neck the last time they’d fought. Unluckily for Hiram, the memory of that still makes FP see red. His next punch lands squarely on Hiram’s throat, sending him to the ground. FP’s shaking with anger. “You fucking-”

He kicks Hiram in the ribs, doesn't hear a snap, and kicks harder until he does. Getting down on his knees, he starts pummelling Hiram in the face with punches, his knuckles going slick with the blood that sprays up onto his face and neck.

“Don't fucking _ever_ touch him, don't ever-”

He almost lets off when he hears Hiram’s nose break, but the sight of Fred in that bedroom comes to him again, Fred trying to cover his face as if that would have made it less real, and the rage flares up in him again until it blots out everything else. He knocks Hiram hard in the head, the kind of knock that could give a guy a concussion. FP grabs a fistful of Hiram’s bloody, greasy hair, and rips his head up off the pavement.

_Forsythe. Stop._

He’s ready to use that fistful of hair to smash Hiram’s skull back down onto the ground, but he pauses. That image of Fred is still there, but something else comes to him too, a sharp voice that sounds a bit like him and a bit like his dad and a bit like his mom and somehow a bit like Alice Smith. _Don't._  

He waits, Hiram wheezing for breath under him, bubbles of blood bursting over his lips, and thinks about just ripping the hair as hard as he can, pulling until it hurt, tearing a fistful of glossy black out of his awful rich head.

_No, Forsythe. Don't._

* * *

When he gets to the room Fred’s fast asleep, spread-eagled on his back with his unruly hair curling just slightly at his ears, looking for all the world like a baby angel. His cheeks are flushed pink and his lips are wet. He's vomited over the side of the mattress. FP sends up a silent apology to whoever's room this is. 

“Freddie,” whispers FP, and shakes him gently by the shoulder, his voice soft. “Freddie, hey.”

Fred groans. “Lemme sleep, FP.”

“No, it's time to get up now.”

Fred blinks sleepily at him, and then his eyes go wide. He seizes FP’s bloody hand. “F, you’re bleeding.”

“It’s not mine.” FP lets him squeeze his fingers, exploring the skin for cuts. “Can you walk?”

“What happened? Who’s bleeding?”

“It doesn't matter.” FP slides an arm under Fred’s legs, the other under his back, and lifts him right off the bed. He sets Fred carefully down on his feet. 

“Are you mad at me, F?”

FP’s heart breaks. “No, baby, no. I’m not mad.”

Fred leans heavily on him, swaying a bit. “I drank too much.”

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“Did who hurt me?” Fred seizes his hand again, stares at FP’s knuckles. “You _are_ bleeding.”

“I’m fine, Freddie.” FP gazes dumbly down at his bruised hands, then back up to Fred’s face. Fred’s blinking confusedly at him, eyes unfocused, and FP takes his head gently between his hands. “Fred, look at me. Do you remember what happened?”

“Did what happened?” mumbles Fred, frowning at him. “F, you’re crying.”

FP swipes at his eyes, horrified. “No, I’m not. Let’s find Alice. He tucks his hand into Fred’s, inadvertently smearing him with Hiram’s blood. You’ve had too much to drink.”

Fortunately, Fred doesn’t argue, only nods trustingly, looking relieved. “Okay.”

“Let’s go.” 

Maneuvering down the stairs with another person is a lot harder this time. By the time they reach the bottom, FP’s taking almost all of Fred’s weight. The places where Fred’s skin presses against his own are slick with sweat. “You okay, Fred?”

Fred doesn’t say anything, which is usually a sure sign he’s going to throw up. 

“Fred, tell me if you’re gonna -” 

“I’m gonna.” 

“Oh, shit, okay.” FP looks quickly around for an exit, but Fred’s already stumbling toward the front porch, the lawn where he’d left Hiram bleeding.

“Fred, no-”

FP chases him out on the porch, where Fred hunches over the blue-painted railing and dry-heaves painfully over Mrs. Banks’ prize begonias. He sounds like he’s trying to bring up everything he’s ever eaten, but nothing comes out. FP touches his back with the less-bloody hand and feels him shivering.

Fred props his elbows up on the rail and buries his face in his hands, his shoulders still trembling slightly from the effort of heaving. “Sorry,” he apologizes into his palms. “I’m a mess.”

FP gives him as long as he can, but he still feels unsafe here under the open sky, and when Fred doesn’t move he tugs gently on his shirt. “We have to find Alice.” 

“I’ll stay here.”

“ _No_ , Fred.” His voice must be sharper than usual, because Fred’s head snaps up.

“You _are_ mad at me.”

“I’m not, but we have to  _go_.”

Inside the house, clutching to Fred with one hand, the other pumping the air to keep them moving quickly, FP searches uselessly among the crowds of people for Alice. The party’s starting to die down - _what the fuck time is it, anyway,_ he thinks desperately - but the house is still packed. His shoes are crunching over broken glass and random, ransacked household items. Rick’s going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do to his parents when they get home.

FP keeps losing track of Fred, who’s walking a lot slower than him, and stopping intermittently to drunkenly talk to people. FP comes jogging back to him now and grabs his hand, tight.

“Fred we have to go, we have to find Alice,  _now_.” Fuck, he’ll carry Fred back to his side of town at this point. Fuck their designated driver.

“I’m tired.”

“Then let’s fucking _go_.” FP grabs his hand tight, tight, tight, and _yanks_. Fred lets out a little yelp of pain, but FP’s too far gone to hear it. His legs are shaking and he knows before long he’s going to throw up again. It’s just a matter of outrunning the clock.

“FP, what is it?” calls Fred as FP’s herding him toward the exit. “What is it, what happened? FP, whats going on? Is it Alice?” He’s struggling to keep pace with FP, tripping over himself. “Did Alice tell you that she’s-”

FP jerks him to a stop and spins him around to face him. “No, Fred! You almost -” He breathes heavily, trying to force himself to say it and can’t, but can't stop himself babbling either. “-you - and it's my _fault_ , that's what happened.”

Fred takes a step back, lip trembling a bit, confusion in his eyes. “What?” 

“Nothing,” snaps FP forcefully, and turns sharply to his right. Within the front hall, FP grabs the handle of the coat closet and rips it open. Sierra and Alice are inside, entwined together between a massive fur and a large display of umbrellas. 

“What the fuck _!_ ” shouts Sierra, but FP ignores her. She must see the panic in his eyes - or maybe she only sees the blood sprayed up his neck - but Alice gets out of the closet without a second glance.  
  
"What's going on?"

"I had too much to drink," says Fred from FP’s side in a small voice, like it's his fault, but then cracks a grin. "Al, you have hickeys- _everywhere_ -"

Alice shakes her head. “Fuck, he’s drunk.”

“Alice, we have to go now,” says FP, Sierra glaring at all three of them like she’s wishing death on them all. “We’re going home right now.”

Alice keeps glancing at his knuckles, the red soaked up his arm, but she knows better than to ask. “All right. We parked out front.”

“We’re going out the side door.”

Thank God, thank the Almighty Lord Above and whoever else is out there for Alice Cooper and her level head. She takes Fred’s other side without so much as a fucking blink and helps FP get him out the side entrance and down to the street. She doesn’t even ask why they’re going out the side instead of the front.

“Give Fred the backseat so he can lie down,” is the only thing she says to him, as they’re approaching the car at a stumbling, three-legged gait.

“FP-” whimpers Fred as FP’s loading him into the back of the car , “I’m sorry if I ruined your party.”

“Shut the fuck up.” FP’s still shaking, trying and failing to control it. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

“Ok.” Fred lets himself lay down in the backseat, pressing his face once more into the leather. _Full circle_ , thinks FP with absurdity. _And this is where we started._

How long ago, four hours? Five?

_Nothing good ever happens at these-_

“I love you.”

It’s quiet, pressed into the upholstery, but it’s definitely there. FP trembles, the edge of the car door cutting into his palm from where he’s squeezing it. Wonders if his legs are going to give out.

“Watch your feet,” he says hoarsely, and closes the door.

The car ride back to Acorn Way is dead quiet. Fred goes back to sleep in the backseat, one hand pressed against his lips. Alice glances at FP every so often, but FP doesn’t match her gaze. Doesn’t want to. He keeps his eyes on the rearview mirror instead, on Fred’s sleeping form. His thoughts are spinning around and around in his mind, never reaching any kind of conclusion.

“I'll take him,” Alice says, when they pull up to Fred’s house, the homestead silent now, waiting. “Parents like me.”

Parents do like Alice, or at least Fred’s parents do, so FP lets her shake Fred awake, lets her wrap an arm around his shoulders and guide him up toward the porch, the two of them hobbling like they’re old, Fred whispering apologies and Alice ignoring them. Once they’re a decent distance from the car, FP puts his head down and cries, the kind of crying that would have got him a pounding from his old man if he’d ever seen him do it.

He wants to be crying for Fred, crying for what had almost happened to him, crying for the fear and pain he’d heard so briefly in Fred’s voice, even if Fred didn’t seem to remember it now, and probably, certainly wouldn’t in the morning. He tries to pretend he is, thinks he could probably convince someone else, but it’s no use, because he knows. He knows with a sick, dark self-loathing that he’s crying for a different reason. He’s crying because beating Hiram up like that had scared him. Had scared him as deeply and as horribly as the nightmares he used to have when he was little, had scared him more than anything he’d ever done before. 

The thing is, Serpents beat guys up all the time. FP should be able to dish it out without a flinch - take it without a flinch too, if the going got rough. Instead he’s crying like a little boy.

"Get it together," he whispers to himself, and then laughs hoarsely, his throat raw and tasting like vomit, wiping tears off his cheeks with bloodstained fingers. 

When Alice gets back, her lips are set so thin they’ve started to disappear, and FP knows she hates him. The car ride back to the Southside is even more strained, the two of them silently contained in their agonizing desire to be anywhere but where they are. Alice doesn’t say a word to him until they’re in front of his trailer, headlights illuminating the uselessly cheerful **SUNNYSIDE TRAILER PARK** sign on the other side of the fence.

“I’ll get you for brunch tomorrow. We’ll talk. And FP?”

“Yes?” he whispers.

Alice just looks at him, her skin waxen in the glow of the headlights, her mouth a grim line, her stomach just barely rounded under her shirt with the baby she hasn't told him about yet. “Don’t invite me to any more parties.”


End file.
